The Allrecipes Kitchen Organization Challenge Day 1: Junk Drawer Makeover

Ah, the kitchen junk drawer: The chaotic trough you hurry to close away from sight and mind, no sooner than you've opened it. It's a seemingly convenient dumping ground when something has no other obvious home, and it's the last resort you turn to when the item you seek is nowhere else to be found.

We all have one, some of us even have more than one. And that being the case, there's hardly a better place to kick off this week-long series of organization inspiration.

Brittani Allen — the CEO and founder of Atlanta-based home organization firm, Pinch of Help — stands behind more incomparable junk drawer makeovers than most of us would ever care to count; and, she can absolutely you turn yours into one of your favorite drawers in the kitchen. In fact, once you have everything you need on hand, you can convert the abysmal eyesore drawer (as I've so affectionately named mine) into a zone that sparks a smile every time you open it...in less than an hour. That's the kind of transformation that turns even the most disorganized among us into a believer.

According to Brittani, the first step towards creating a more functional kitchen drawer space — whether it's your designated "junk drawer" or even a more established drawer — is defining a theme for the space at hand. "Drawer organization within a kitchen is MAJOR," she says. "Because what happens is, if you don't give them a certain theme, they all kind of become junk drawers, filled with cooking utensils, and then junk."

Given that the organizationally confused drawer in question offers ample customizable potential, and every home has its own storage needs, Brittani has outlined three popular paths for making over the junk drawer:

The Purposeful Drawer

Time Required: 30 minutes
Helpful Tools:

• Small, organizing bins
• Drawer organizer tray
• A large, clear area (like a kitchen table) to sort items

Or as Brittani says, "Path number one: Let's just organize the thing!"

This route is for those of us who do actually use items in our junk drawer (like scissors, tape, phone cords/chargers, or even a deck of cards) on a regular basis, but are still ready to remove the "junk." Even if your junk drawer feels cluttered, Brittani explains, "Whether it's a set of your favorite pens, scissors, batteries, or spare keys, you can make your junk drawer purposeful by only keeping items you reach for again and again." In other words, this approach comes down to highlighting the essentials, and addressing the items that have been haphazardly thrown into the drawer. (In many cases, the items that seemed worth saving at the time have proven to be "stuff" you can easily live without.)

For many families, the kitchen is the central hub of the home. And if this is the case in your household, there may very well be items in your junk drawer(s) that you want to keep in the kitchen, even if they have zilch to do with cooking.

Your first step is going to be emptying the drawer and separating the contents into two piles: purposeful (as in, "we reach for this item on a regular basis and it makes sense for it to live in the kitchen") and needs-to-go (this category will entail items that need to go to a more appropriate home within your home, and those that need to go into donation pile or waste bin). If it's helpful for you, you can also create a third "undecided" pile to deal with once you've sorted the rest. It's often easier to handle the items you were initially uncertain about after you've gotten into a rhythm of designating legitimately important items from those that are "what if I need this someday?" items.

Now, this is the fun part. Once you've established what belongs in your new purposeful drawer, you'll want to pick up and implement containers that make sense for your drawer space and the items you want to keep there. "Using drawer organizers puts a cap on your capacity to stuff more and more items inside, and makes it a cinch to find what you need," Brittani says.

Myself, I was skeptical of packing my drawers with organizational containers (I mean, it seems as though you're your limiting space, right?), but after seeing what a functional drawer — one that's refined down to the items that a family needs and uses on a daily basis — looks like, I get it.

If upon review, you decide that the vast majority of what resides in your junk drawer is either legitimate trash or would have a better home outside of the kitchen, it's time to give that drawer a completely new identity.

One of Brittani's (and many of her clients') favorite approaches to such a drawer is a reimagined spice "cabinet." Dried spices benefit from being stored out of the light and away from the stove's heat, in a relatively cool, dry area — so, if you have the available space, stashing them in a drawer is generally a great option. And beyond being ideal for their shelf life, creating a spice drawer makes all of your seasonings easily accessible; in turn, making cooking a bit easier.

Of course, simply tossing your assortment of spice containers into a drawer isn't doing yourself any favors, so let's create some structure. It's not absolutely necessary, but an easy first step towards creating a sense of clarity for this drawer is establishing a sense of uniformity, that also just happens to be aesthetically pleasing, with your spice containers. "If you really want to elevate your spice drawer, decant the spices into matching jars and add a cute label," Brittani says. You can easily find inexpensive, transparent spice jars, as well as pre-made labels (like these water- and oil-resistant spice labels), from various online retailers.

How you organize your spice bottles (whether alphabetically by name, by how often you use each, or by a system all of your own) is ultimately up to you. However, there are a few options for making the assembly of your spice drawer as easy and effective as possible. Remember, when you open the drawer, you want all of your spices on display...so you essentially want to create a spice shelf that lies flat in your drawer.

For example, if you're working with a wide drawer and a large spice collection, this approach — where Brittani utilizes drawer organizer inserts and front-facing labels — makes for an elegant custom look. Meanwhile, if you're looking at a more standard-size drawer, you could use an adjustable spice organizer, as Brittani does here. Both of these drawer-focused options keep seasonings shielded from the turbulence of the kitchen, but allow you to see all of your spices at a glance, versus having to rummage through a cabinet or turntable.

The Coffee/Tea Drawer

Time Required: 20 minutes
Helpful Tools:

• Drawer organizers

Transforming drawer space into a designated area for coffee and/or tea is another favorite option among Brittani's clients. Similar to the spice drawer, creating a coffee/tea/hot cocoa drawer is a great way to reclaim what used to be a hodgepodge area of who-knows-what for something that you genuinely take pleasure in and that adds a signature touch to your kitchen.

For those that enjoy a warm beverage as a part of their morning and/or evening routine, defining a drawer for your daily ritual can be a completely lovely way to acknowledge and treat yourself. Once you have your drawer space cleared out and ready, remove all of your coffee pods and teas from their bulky packages, and line them up in drawer organizers. Add in your favorite sweeteners, stirrers, etc. and "look forward to opening this little slice of joy each day," Brittani says.

If the idea of making one of the messiest areas of your kitchen look like one of the images above feels intimidating, try to remember: it's just one drawer. During the course of the week, you handle roughly 100 things that are more challenging than revamping a single drawer. But the beautiful thing is, success with a single drawer can be the catalyst needed for taking on other kitchen organization projects (like the rest of what's to come this week!).

"These are very quick, easy, straightforward projects," Brittani says. "You just need to clear the drawer out, put a few things in, and you can achieve it."

At the end of the day, Brittani emphasizes that she, and the entire Pinch of Help team, aims to accomplish is making every area work for their clients — down to every last drawer, even the junk drawer. "This means having all of the items you need on a daily basis easily and beautifully within reach," She says. "Junk drawers are a thing of the past, and are now replaced with coffee and tea drawers, baby items drawers, pet drawers, school supply drawers, you name it! Whatever makes sense for you and your family, is fair game."

With that in mind...what is your junk drawer's greater destiny?